Estonia is leading the way in decentralizing governance. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 48:
- Estonia is taking a leap into the world of decentralization. As a result of a partnership with decentralized governance project Bitnation the country will be offering a Public Notary to e-residents, starting December 2015. The service will allow e-residents to notarize anything from birth certificates to business contracts on the blockchain. Bitnation itself is better known for recently starting to offer refugees an emergency digital ID, as well as a Bitcoin visa card, for those who cannot obtain any other documentation and/or a bank account.
- Several new blockchain applications were proposed this week. Students at West Virginia University (WVU) proposed blockchain-based voting because “votes that are entered in the blockchain can never be altered or deleted”, while insurance specialist Lloyd’s intends to use the blockchain to “improve the way insurers record risk, increasing the speed, accuracy and transparency of our processes”. With the ever growing list of new blockchain-based application 2016 is seemingly deemed to become the year of the blockchain.
- European government institutions aren’t exceptions to the previous, as both the Bank of England (BoE) and Europol are eagerly searching for interns that know how blockchains work. BoE has even turned the selection process into a competition, having students submit proposals for new uses of the blockchain. Europol is taking a more traditional approach, but will certainly get the new interns to work of new blockchain applications.
- Along with the annual Black Friday, the Bitcoin community celebrated Bitcoin Black Friday for the third time since Jon Holmquist started it in 2012 after launching BitcoinBlackFriday.com. Bitcoin payment processors are likely to post more details on their transaction volumes on Black Friday in the following days.
- The price of Bitcoin heated up again this week, increasing by more than nine percent or roughly $31 to a current exchange rate of about $356 per coin. The price even tipped above $360 this week, which is close to the point where the rally earlier this month ended.
